EXERCISE IN RHETORIC AND MEMORY

A MEMORIAL FOR GENERATION Y: THE MILLENNIALS’ FAREWELL

University of Pittsburgh, Rhetorical Process Spring 2010

Professor John Lyne, David Landes, Chris House

How will our generation be remembered in the future?

With 9/11, economic crises, global networks of terrorism… will we be the laughing stock of history? The suckers who got the raw end of technology’s deal? The last generation of an underequipped species to cohabitate peacefully in a globalized world?

Or

With the internet, advanced knowledge, and America’s first black president… will we be the heroic trailblazers of a brave new world? History’s role model for finding comfort in rapid change? The Earth’s most victorious species due to our adaptability?

…maybe all of the above.

The idea behind this Exercise

Some pharaohs got gilded tombs, some generals got bronze statues, some presidents got enshrined in coinage. The desire to “live on” beyond our corporeal death is a recurring motif across forms of human expression. While still alive, we can influence how we are remembered by coining the terms of our remembrance, articulating our self-interpretation, and positioning ourselves in a grand historical mythology. For those of us who cannot build our shrine of magnificent materials, we can build it with our words preserved in “public memory” (what Bodnar calls “a body of beliefs and ideas about the past that help a public or society understand both its past, present, and by implication, its future”). When people attempt to craft the way they will be remembered, they embrace the genre of discourse John Lyne calls “the premembrance.”

How we made these premembrances

Forward-minded rhetoric students at the University of Pittsburgh have crafted 6 premembrances for their generation. They each brainstormed 4 lists of Gen Y’s defining characteristics: historical events that shape us, things we do, things we value, values we embody. They shared their ideas and we distilled the lists into premembrance language that was provoking, evocative, eulogistic, poetic, and hopefully memorable. The process of group brainstorming and collaborative authorship demonstrated rhetoric’s program: finding where the horizon of possibility meets the limits of kairos and appropriateness. The end product—never perfect—represents contemporary university students’ first grasp at articulating their historical self-understanding in concise epideictic prose.

Wednesday 12pm Recitation

This memorial stands before you as an enduring monument to Generation Y, the Millennials.

They were the generation who witnessed uncertainty with brazen audacity, the fears of global warfare, a shrinking technological world’s looming threat of the unknown.

They were the generation who were always connected with each other, obsessed with self-improvement, and filled with love.

They were the generation who valued perfection through constant change, growing knowledge, and meaningful success

May we forever remember them as the brave vanguard of optimists in the historical apex of change.

Wednesday 1pm Recitation

This memorial stands before you as an enduring monument to Generation Y, the Millennials.

They were the generation who witnessed an era of extremes: disaster, atrocity, technology gone evil and a unprecedented time of change.

They were the generation who created their own world, overcoming competition of the forces of destruction while remaining conscientious of their impact.

They were the generation who valued freedom and equality in embracing all that is new, hearing in it the symphony of individual voices in a global context.

May we forever remember them as the generation of open arms and open minds—those who beat the odds

Friday 11am Recitation

This memorial stands before you as an enduring monument to Generation Y, the Millennials.

They were the generation who witnessed global crises and dubious progress as well as new beginnings and social connectedness.

They were the generation who transcended limitations of acting as individuals and sought to unify through the internet while they etched the foundations of the digital tomorrow.

They were the generation who carried forth established values into the uncertain times of new terrain.

May we forever remember them as inventors and couriers of knowledge for the betterment of themselves and future generations.